Monday, April 6, 2015

The Port Augusta community have called for South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill to step up to help fund construction of a solar thermal power station. The call from Repower Port Augusta comes in reponse to an Alinta Energy assessment (Draft Milestone 3 Balance of Study Report March 2015 PDF) that found a solar thermal power station was still uneconomic to build without government support. The proposed 50MW project is estimated to cost $577 million, about $150 million greater than it's commercial viability.

Australia currently does not have any 'baseload' concentrating solar thermal with molten salt energy storage power plants. The Port Augusta proposed power station could be Australia's first using a Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) power tower with up to 15 hours molten salt energy storage included.

South Australian Premier Jay Wetherall announced in September 2014 that the state was about to reach it's 2020 target of 33 per cent renewables in the electricity sector and had chosen to increase this target to 50 per cent by 2020.

“The ball is in the South Australian Government’s court. South Australia has led the way in renewable energy but to see that continue, when the Federal Government is trying to cut the Renewable Energy Target, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Jay Weatherill must urgently put forward a policy to make solar thermal happen” said Lumsden.

The balance of study draft report produced by Alinta Energy, who own the Northern Power Station (wikipedia), found a $150 million gap in making the project commercially viable.

“With Government assistance, a funding gap of around $150 million for a game-changing renewable energy project is not too much to ask. Our message to Alinta is don’t give up now and our message to the State Government is: do the right thing by Port Augusta and South Australia and step in to make solar thermal happen” concluded Lumsden.

Electricity for the region is provided by the Northern Power station with brown coal mined and transported by rail from Leigh Creek 280km to the north. The Playford B coal-fired power station nearby was mothballed in 2012 due to decreasing electricity demand and increase in renewables generation capacity in the State.

South Australia’s coal use has fallen from 32.8% generation share in 2009-10 to 16.8% in 2013-14, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (South Australian Fuel and Technology Report, 2015 PDF)

Air pollution from coal increasing

Besides the impact of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change, the Northern Power Station and Leigh Creek mine are also substantial contributors to particulate and air pollution which impacts regional population health increasing health expenses.

Poorer quality brown coal is now being mined at Leigh Creek resulting in coarse particulate pollution at the mine (PM10) nearly trebling over the last five years, rising 189 per cent according to National Pollution Inventory data.

With lower quality coal being supplied, Alinta Energy's Northern Power Station, in Port Augusta, is now the 11th highest emitter of PM10 of all Australia’s power stations (506,271kg in total). It is the 9th highest emitter of the very dangerous fine particles (PM2.5).

“This community is ready for a transition to solar thermal and this new data demonstrates that Port Augusta could be a much healthier, cleaner place if we replace our polluting power stations with clean solar thermal”, said Lisa Lumsden spokesperson for Repower Port Augusta in a media release.

Abbott undermining RET means Australia missing renewable energy boom

The Renewable Energy Target also needs to be maintained or increased to encourage investment in projects such as the proposed solar thermal power station at Port Augusta. A higher Renewable Energy Target is more likely to encourage new innovative concentrating solar thermal (CST) and solar PV projects, while any compromise reduction in the RET, as recently put forward by the Clean Energy Council (RenewEconomy: CEC proposes compromise deal – and massive cut – to RET), will benefit a few shovel-ready wind farm projects leaving utility scale Solar PV and CST out in the cold for investment.

The Abbott Government Review of the RET conducted by climate denier businessman Dick Warburton has resulted in substantial business investment uncertainty in the Renewables sector in Australia. Investment and jobs in renewable energy have surged internationally - Clean energy investment grew in China (32%), the US (8%), Japan (12%), Germany (3%) and the UK (3%) in 2014. Here in Australia, investment fell 35% ( with investment in large-scale renewable energy falling 88%), due to policy uncertainty.

According to the Climate Council report published in March 2015 - The global renewable energy boom: how Australia is missing out - "Australia has excellent renewable energy resources, but is missing out on the global renewable boom due to policy uncertainty and threats to wind back the Renewable Energy Target."

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Time to leap out of the slowly boiling pot of earth's warming climate
into action on climate mitigation and adaption.
I don't want my children to ask why I didn't act after reading the
scientific reports of climate risks. I write on the
effects of human induced climate change, sea level rise, ocean
acidification, biodiversity loss, environmental and social impacts of
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A member of environmental NGOs and community groups for 30 years in Australia, currently living in Melbourne. I have been a Citizen journalist for the Indymedia network in Australia and worldwide from 2000, as an editor and contributor with Australia Indymedia and the global features collective. Since 2013 I have contributed many stories to Margot Kingston's citizen journalism website: nofibs.com.au. (See my article archive) I also post photoessays to Flickr and videos to Youtube and edit wikipedia as user Tirin. My website is takver.com where I can be contacted through the feedback form, the most reliable way to contact me. I can also be contacted through facebook and on twitter as @takvera.